Springtime of the Peoples: The Revolutions of 1848
PARIS, 4TH OF MARCH 1848.
OUTSIDE THERE IS A REVOLUTION.
INSIDE THERE IS MUSIC.
One week before the events of Monsieur Chopin, Paris once again erupted in revolution. This time, the spirit of liberation would spread across Europe in the largest wave of revolutionary activity in the continent's history.
The more well-known French Revolution, as depicted in A Tale of Two Cities and many other works, began almost 60 years earlier in 1789. Ten years of reforms, insurrection and the declaration of the French First Republic ultimately ended with Napoleon Bonaparte seizing power in 1799. Styling himself Emperor, Napoleon's France dominated the European continent as far east as Poland. A disastrous overreach into Russia in 1813 would start to unravel Napoleon's rule. A coalition of forces from Russia, Prussia, the United Kingdom, Austria and Spain forced the Emperor to abdicate in 1814 and they defeated him a final time at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
The French monarchy, which had ended with the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, was restored and the dead Louis's brother declared King Louis XVIII. A return to absolute monarchy wouldn't be tolerated in France and so a constitutional monarchy with some limits on the King's power was declared. Louis more or less abided by these rules, but upon his death in 1824, his brother Charles X became king. Charles was far more hostile to republican sentiments and in 1830, he issued the Four Ordinances of Saint-Cloud, which abolished freedom of the press, reduced the electorate by excluding the commercial middle-class, and dissolved the lower house of the French Parliament. These authoritarian moves outraged the French public and sparked the July Revolution, which succeeded at forcing Charles to abdicate.
A cousin of Louis and Charles, Louis Philippe I, became King. Louis Philippe was from the more liberal Orleans family, instead of the conservative Bourbon family who had ruled France since the 16th century. The Charter of 1830 more firmly established a constitutional monarchy and further limited the influence of the king on legislation. Enfranchisement was extended to more of the haute bourgeoisie who became the base of Louise Philippe's support. The number of Frenchmen with the power to vote more than doubled during this time, but the pace of progress didn't keep up with the times. The haute bourgeoisise, consisting of tradesmen and white collar workers, were still excluded from elections and grew to resent the government.
The simmering discontent began to boil over in 1846 when France experienced an economic depression and financial crisis due to a poor harvest, as did many European countries that year. Political gatherings had been constitutionally restricted in France since 1835, and so other private gatherings were organized with increasing frequency all over France for the not-so-secret voicing of political grievance. These "banquets" intensified between July and December 1847, leading the government to specifically prohibit a planned gathering on January 14, 1848.
The organizers of the January banquet responded by rescheduling the gathering for February 22nd, in honor of George Washington's birthday, a hero to democratic activists. Declaring the event illegal again, the French government was caught off guard when mass demonstrations take over Paris on the 22nd. Demonstrations continued the following day, with the National Guard even joining the protestors. Prime Minister Francois Guizot was forced to resign in an effort to end the uprising, but forces defending the Ministry of Foreign Affairs kill 52 protestors and injure 74 others.
Barricades prolificated around Paris on the 24th and insurgents began fighting with government forces. At noon, Louise Philippe announced his abdication in favor of his nine-year-old grandson, Philippe, and fled for the United Kingdom. Revolutionaries seized Tuileries Palace after the King’s departure and fervor for a provisional government intensified. The French Second Republic was declared in the early hours of February 25, 1848.
On March 5th, the day after Monsieur Chopin's dramatized piano lesson, the provisional government of France extended universal suffrage to all French men to help determine the direction of the country. Elections in April empowered a republican majority who spent the year developing a new constitution. In December's presidential election, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the former emperor, won in a landslide with the overwhelming support of the lower classes.
The events in France reverberated throughout Europe and led to similar uprisings across the continent, all with the aim of liberalizing monarchical regimes. The movements were all separate and not coordinated, but shared similar goals and spirit. Earlier in January, the island of Sicily had declared its independence from the Hapsburg regime on the mainland, and would maintain its autonomy until May 1849. Elsewhere in Italy, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Papal States all granted constitutions in an effort to thwart republican agitation. Seeing an opportunity to begin the unification of Italy, Sardinia attempted to drive Austrian forces out of the north of the peninsula in March 1848, but the Austrians ended up retaking the territory by August 1849. The French came to the aid of the Pope Piux IX and helped end the fledgling Roman Republic in June 1849.
In Austria, internal discontent among the many ethnicities of the empire grew throughout 1848, with Emperor Ferdinand I fleeing Vienna on two occasions due to unrest. The Emperor agreed to the abolition of serfdom in the empire, but continuing unrest led to him abdicating in December and turning power over to his nephew, Franz Joseph I, who defeated the revolts in Northern Italy and Austria. Hungary, however, continued to cause problems for the Emperor. The country implemented democratic parliamentary elections in April 1848, which Ferdinand had at the time agreed to. However, Fran Joseph revoked that decision a year later, sparking a full fight for independence by the Hungarians. After many embarrassing defeats, the Austrian Empire was forced to call on Russia for help in defeating the revolution, which was finally crushed in October 1849. Hungary was placed under a military dictatorship until 1867.
As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, the Holy Roman Empire had been broken apart and Germany now consisted of a confederation of independent states. The German middle and working classes began to protest in March 1848 for a united Germany, as well as freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. Some of their demands were granted initially, but diverging priorities between the liberal middle class and the more radical working class revolutionaries allowed the German aristocracies to regain control, crush the revolutions, and roll back the reforms by the end of 1849. Meanwhile, Russia defeated successive revolutions in Moldavia and Wallachia (present day Romania) which both sought autonomy and the abolition of serfdom. After the death of King Christian VIII of Denmark in January 1848, new king Frederick VII agreed to a constitutional monarchy in the face of mounting opposition. And in the Netherlands, King William II agreed to democratic reform and a constitutional monarchy in Nov 1848 without any significant unrest occurring.
By the end of 1849, the revolutions were over and most of the ruling powers back in control. The liberal dreams of the revolutionaries were largely unfulfilled. Thousands of affected peoples would emigrate to the United States and more liberal parts of Northwestern Europe as a result. The French Second Republic would only last another three years before a coup d'etat in 1851 by Louis-Napoleon led to the founding of the Second Empire with himself ruling as Napoleon III. However, within the next 25 years, many of the goals of the 1848 revolutions would end up coming to pass despite the earlier defeats. Tsar Alexander II freed Russia's serfs in 1861; Hungary achieved a dual monarchy with Austria in 1867; France became a republic once more in 1870; and Germany and Italy each unified by 1871. Sadly, Chopin's homeland would have to wait until 1918 to enjoy independence once again, and the composer never got to visit or witness a free Poland during his short lifetime.